


Four and Twenty Blackbirds

by thumbipeach



Category: Purple Hyacinth (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Friends to Enemies to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Mutual Pining, No beta we die like all of Lune’s convicts, Nursery Rhyme, Office, PTSD mentions, Pining, Post Season 1/season 2, Symbolism, Two fools being fools, Unrequited Love, angst and then fluff, angsty, but then they’re all good, for a bit, fun things, me writing the word handshake fifty times, no high key power couple this time sorry, oh too soon?, only angst and then fluff, sorry I’m a fool too, they're idiots and so am i, very mild though, wow here we go, y’all wanted fluff??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:08:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24496978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thumbipeach/pseuds/thumbipeach
Summary: Each time they shake hands, an hour wanes.
Relationships: Lauren Sinclair/Kieran White
Comments: 23
Kudos: 101





	Four and Twenty Blackbirds

_Sing a song of sixpence //_

They remember the first handshake, they have to, because it is the one that is a catalyst for the rest.

It is on a bridge with a torrential river crashing below, wind whipping and the moon casting the scene in a plaster of light, making a diorama of the day Ardhalis gained an unlikely ally from both sides of its divide. They are two sides to a coin, two means to an end, two vengeful beings with the same goal: to stop the rhythm their hearts beat to once and for all. He sees that immediately, but she refuses to acknowledge it, her stubborn nature holding the dam back from bursting.

She cocks her gun, an expensive thing of silver-gold, and presses it to his temples. 

“You’re the Purple Hyacinth.” A proclamation.

“That I am, officer.” A sentence, one of either death or life. It is in her hands, that.

It takes bribery, a dance of roses and thorns upon a bridge of bone and reluctance, before she offers him her name as he does in turn.

“Lauren Sinclair.”

“Kieran White. Lovely to know you, darling.”

He cuts himself, dragging the blade across his palm, the pain not registering in the triumph of the evening. She follows suit, no expression on her face but a storm in her eyes. The scars from this are worth more than a simple sixpence. They are words in themselves.

Then they join hands for the first time, touching in a way that is not violent.

It is the first.

It will not be the last.

_A pocketful of rye //_

Again, when they come to an impasse that is bound to occur when two enemies converge, they find themselves once again bound by their wrists.

He twists her into an alleyway and holds her to him, an embrace as close as lovers but as far as they allow with swords in their palms and hearts. She takes off her white mask, letting it drop to the floor, but does not do the same to the one residing inside her, the one that makes her cold and angry.

“I hope you missed me.”

“I did not.”

They are at odds, and suddenly with a rush of air, swift as the two players in the fighting game, a gun is at his head and his dagger is at her neck. They look at each other as equals. Their pockets are empty, hand exposed to show their old scars.

“The next time you pull a thing like this, I’m letting you burn.”

“Noted, assassin.”

They shake in the depths of an alleyway, reluctant hand in reluctant hand, and part ways, her going back to the steady clicks of police-issued boots and masquerade coverings, him to a darkness that swallows his tall figure whole.

—————

“Why did you save me?” She asks, with all curiosity.

For a moment, he cannot answer in a way that she will not detect. Lies fall through his fingers like grains of rye, ones he cannot reach at without going through them.

_I need you._

_I have always needed you._

_I want to keep you alive. You are the first person I_ could _keep alive._

So instead he accepts the half-truth of it, falls into the familiar cushion of partial honesty that experienced deceivers adopt like a spare voice.

“Well, my little vendetta would be useless without my partner.”

He shares that and in turn she gives, gives him a little bit of information that she had previously denied them. 

He probes. He is a bad businessman. He cannot return the favor. He buries his hands in his pockets and walks away, feeling the rye bunch like the bouquets of lavender blossoms he knows as his folly.

_Four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie //_

“I’ll find who did it for you.”

That. That small agreement, that is what brings a smile to her face, finally, a real one. They are walking side by side in the plain, cold air, and she looks like he has given her something very important. He finds he likes it.

It is an agreement not exactly shaken upon, but the brief rush of understanding in their eyes, the tight clasp they keep on their hearts, loosened a little by honesty, that is enough.

“Thank you, Kieran.”

“Think nothing of it, darling.”

—————

He twiddles his thumbs as the messenger passes him papers upon papers, files on his next targets, targets he knows already because he’s pored over them with a different person at his side. Now, it is him and the messenger only, the comical mask taunting him with unease and a bitter tang, like an unripe blackberry. They are separated by nothing but a table and his own pressing insecurity.

“You’re wavering, Hyacinth.”

“No, no.” He sighs. “This will be done by morning.”

“It’d better, assassin.”

He’d wish they’d stop calling him that. Hyacinth, at any rate, ties him to the flower and not the blood that pools in his mind. He tolerates it with her but not with them, how hypocritical of him. 

They never shake, for unlike him and his unlikely shadow, they are not equals. The plague doctor eradicating nothing but peace floats out of the room, leaving the Hyacinth wilting in its soil. There is no exchange of trust. There cannot be.

His fate is solidified in an unofficial agreement, baked into the crust of his life, drowning in the sticky mess of his sins.   
  


_When the pie was opened, the birds began to sing //_

They do not shake hands. He crushes her neck in his fingers, equals no more. She trembles with both fear and blinding rage as her supposed partner strikes sense into her. She can hear no birdsong or the clank of knives, only the cold grip of anxiety on her heart.

“You’re nothing but a goddamn _monster.”_

Hell. _Hell._ He is, he is, and he knows. So he sings his tune of hypotheticals, cries like a crow, like a hawker of wares, wares of pain and denial.

“ ** _And I have always been like this!”_ **

A knife into the dam he has built. 

When she leaves, their fate is sealed not with a handshake, but with bruises. Not with cuts, but with scars still, on their necks, insides, upon their souls, wayward as they are.

_Wasn’t that a dainty dish to set before the king? //_

When they shake in her office, the world narrows to just them. 

He shouldn’t have done this, not _this,_ but he’s here and the icy wave of absolute hatred washes more blood out of her as if she’d dunked a scarred wrist underwater. What the hell, what the _hell._

There is a palpable moment where the office is silent, static, the background noise of files shuffling and colleagues whispering fading away to a roar of sheer panic, pain, then rage and anger. Shut up, shut _up,_ she tells herself, but all she can still hear is the raucous cheer of pity her brain gives her. Kym is looking at her oddly, then back to the monster himself, even Will is starting to get uncomfortable, quickly Lauren, _quick--_

She cannot even bear to look at him, barely refraining from striking the silly glasses off his face and tugging him by his suspenders down to the floor, where she knows she can subdue him with a knee to his ribs and a gun to his forehead. Instead she quells her anger and faces her demon head on, extending a hand like she has graced him with so many times before, except this one is without warmth, without appeal. It is a trap, a snare. A bow tie on a present of sealed fate.

What a gracious gift indeed.

“Hello, Mr. White. **A pleasure to meet you.”**

“ **Mine as well,** Ms. Sinclair.”

Later, when she leads him into the archives and slams his back into the bookshelves, she is not kind. She does not reach for his hand, for she knows what it can do. Instead, she grasps his neck in return.

“Everything you know, I know. Everything you do, I do too.”

“Was that something we agreed on?”

“You don’t get a say. Not anymore.”

**“Okay.”**

Okay.

_The king was in the counting-house, counting out his money //_

For the first two weeks there is radio silence, on the part of both Lune and the Hyacinth, orders not carried out swiftly enough.

_“You think he’s gone?”_

_“No, possibly not. They’re getting their orders from somewhere, must be.”_

_“Well then get to it. Find out where.”_

They do not know that he walks among them, a wolf clad in the soft down of a wooly lamb. 

But they also do not know that she is there too, glinting auburn and striking gold, a lesson in color theory and all it means, all its silly symbols and metaphors. One half of the wheel. He knows color theory quite well, in fact, for he is an artist amongst the corpses. 

Red and yellow are warm colors, yes, but they also signify danger, alarm. And she is dangerous, more than he at times. She could cut him and he would allow it, because he is bound by her blood to her irreparably.

She catches him in the archives one day, and for once he cannot stand it. He corners her, hands on either side of her fuming frame. He is a king in his counting house, files and papers on the vile things he’s done for his counted coins. And there are many, for he is a rich man.

“Get the hell away from me.”

“We need to talk.”

“No we don’t.”

“If we’re to do this, we need to come to some sort of agreement, officer.”

“Oh yes, because we know how well you deal with agreements.”

That shuts him up. She leaves, fire in her eyes.

Danger indeed.

—————

The second time, she corners him, because she is a giver and a taker concurrently, simultaneously. He’s in the sparring room, bags swinging like pendulums as he beats his frustration into them, muscles contracting with tension and another swirling hatred towards not his situation but to himself. 

He doesn’t know how long she’s been standing there watching him, but her voice jarrs him like no other could.

“Spar with me.”

“What?”

“You heard me, assassin.” She picks up a small wooden thing, scuffed with use and age, from the rack of play weapons, and makes her way to the small ring set up in the middle of the room. “I need to get some tension out.”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“You _know_ why, scum.”

That doesn’t hurt as much as it would have. 

So they do. They kick and punch and bleed, and in the end they once again have stripped away everything from their walls, brought down the red tape and pins and other unnamed things, scattering his coins to the pavement, and they are just two people, once again caught in the wind.

She pins him and he lets her.

“Lauren. I’m sorry.”

Silence.

“Kieran. I don’t think I can forgive you.”

She gets up and leaves him surprisingly empty, broken, even. 

He tries to convince himself that this was how the story was meant to go, because they are immovable objects crushed by an unstoppable force, the force of division and fate. 

But he’s never been a smooth talker.

—————

He helps her out. They are partners, after all, and always will be. 

Her captain--he cannot believe her, listen to her again. They are briefing on a case, a witness lying through his misshapen teeth after what happened at the Carmellia. She can’t speak up, can’t talk, or she’ll be fired indefinitely this time. So she instinctively finds his gaze, meek archivist that he is lounging in the corner, and mouths helplessly at him. 

_He’s lying, Kieran._

He draws their attention to various points in the man’s files, effectively crippling his testimony. The normally stoic Captain thanks him gratefully for his insight. He can see her eyes flash with brief jealousy, but then he meets her gaze and it softens infinitesimally. 

Later, when he is walking home, coat slung over his arm despite the biting chill in the air, she corners him. She sneaks up behind his shadowing footsteps, like he used to once, long ago, and falls into step beside him, feet moving in the same rhythm, hearts once again in time.

“Thank you.” He is surprised.

“For what?”

“You know what.”

He does.

They stop at his door, and once again she puts distance between them, hesitating. “Look. I’m not going to call this ‘giving you another chance.’”

“No, certainly.”

“But... I am willing for a truce.”

“A truce, officer?”

“Indeed, subordinate.” The nickname is a comfort he does not want to admit.

They make new deals. New restrictions, and even without the presence of a loaded magazine and a glinting pistol he understands the unspoken agreement between them now. _You hurt me again in any way and I kill you without hesitation._

They shake in the beginnings of a falling snow, but their hands are warm, small smiles curling their lips.

_The queen was in the parlor, eating bread and honey //_

There is syrup on her sleeves, and it is pulling her down, down down. She cannot escape it.

Every day having to hide, to lie, something she’s always hated, is a struggle. Having him here was at once an extra burden and a comfort, for now there was somebody else to share in her deception. 

She passes him in the hallways and brushes his fingertips in signal, he takes the files she needs like a dutiful archivist. At night, when the officers in the precinct bleed away to none, La Lune sets up a secret shop in the basement archives and works, works, works. Still the honey comes, the viscosity of her lies building up like crystals in her heart.

Eventually it comes to that they reform their old friendship, their old whatever it was that they couldn’t name, and they work together at night once more. Over rooftops, under archways, Lune flits like bats. 

One day, their fingers brush together without any express purpose. It startles her and causes him to freeze, both caught unawares with the seemingly familiar gesture. For a moment, they are at the chasm once more, two uncertain souls bound by a mere handshake.

So, they make another. It is in the dark basement, red yarn strung up between them.

“Everything you know, I know.”

“Likewise, subordinate.”

“And...we rely on each other. I trust you, you trust me.”

“I thought that was unspoken.”

“I just voiced it.”

“Well then.”

Their shake is gentle, delicate. She is surprised by both his demeanor, how soft he’s being with her, and the look in his eyes that she cannot place, like they are where the stars are caged. They look at each other with a new respect, one that is forged by steel.

The next day, when she is having a late and rare breakfast of toast slathered with honey, he drops a secret hyacinth at her desk when he walks by. It’s not purple--it’s blue, with a note attached to it with a matching ribbon.

Kym gives them another look, once she cannot place. But they are more discreet than that, going their separate ways as if they had no connection at all. 

The chase begins, the fun game they play like two children in a garden.

_The maid was in the garden, hanging out the clothes //_

When she comes to his apartment next, the room is much more well lit in the light of the afternoon. They sit together on the couch, sharing tea and office gossip, and while he tends to the vase of orchids on his kitchen counter she takes the time to look around once again.

“Didn’t take you for an artist.”

“Hm, didn’t you?”

“I noticed them the last time--”

They freeze, still unwilling to talk about times and places before the incident, still unwilling to breach the ever-present gap between them. 

“I see. Well, don’t go touching it.”

“Or you’ll kill me?”

The joke doesn't land. He turns to her, more serious than she’s ever seen him. “No. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t--” he chokes, his voice strangely raspy with caution “--I wouldn’t do that to you, officer.”

They stand in silence for moments, heartbeats that deafen in the silent apartment. Then, with a reluctant smile, she holds out her hand, keeping a finger on a small sketch of the bridge where they first touched hands lying in the forefront of the pile of so many others.

“To not killing each other, subordinate.”

He looks shocked, then laughs, the bark stirring something within her at his happiness, his genuine mirth. She tries to ignore it, but it surges still. Stubborn thing, that. 

“Is this a pardon for all the times you’ve held a gun to my head?”

“You could consider it so.”

They do not cut themselves--they cannot again, under the pact.

_Along came a blackbird, and snipped off her nose //_

“Goddamn it.”

She’s hurt, bleeding from a wound not anywhere near her palm. He’s patching her up again, but the blood keeps flowing, keeps churning onto his white collar.

“God-- _officer.”_

“I’m still kicking, subordinate.”

“You’d better.”

They’d barely escaped, hounds on their tail, and she’s shot and he’s worn down like brittle sandpaper, at his last grain.

“Lauren. _Lauren.”_

It’s the first time he’s said her name in eons, and with that comes the twin surprise of him cradling her jaw in his hands, forcing her eyes to meet his stormy countenance. He is gentle for such a dark figure, his palms curling softly around the myriad of scars on her cheeks.

“I need you to not die on me. Not you. Can you promise me that?”

She nods, no strength in her to lift her hand to his in proper decorum.

Later, when she’s all trussed up with bandages and he sits silently on a chair beside her, waiting for her to heal, they agree to more. 

“We keep each other safe.”

“Right.”

“I won’t let you get hurt.”

“Neither I, you.”

“I don’t need to see that again.”

“I know. I don’t want to see you like that ever.”

One pump of the hand, two, and for a moment, they don’t let go. They’ve created something new; a bond that is sealed superficially with their juxtaposed hands, as it always has been, but with new import. They are more than partners, accomplices: they will ward off the crows that come for their noses.

_Sing a song of sixpence_

They shook on honesty

_A pocketful of rye_

They shook on truth

_Four and twenty blackbirds_

They shook on betrayal

_Baked in a pie_

They shook to a friendship, and something even more, something that transcended a bond that they would have before settled with.

_When the pie was opened, the birds began to sing //_

“I lost a friend.”

“I lost my happiness.”

They open up to each other on a starless night. They share themselves and they share the songs of their cores. They are partners, confidantes, friends--and--

And--

They press their lips together, salt and blood and sweat and the damp feeling of correctness, of something that is right. They clasp their hands together, and there is a soft agreement in that, too. 

_Wasn’t that a dainty dish to set before the king? //_

It all goes down, because they were unstoppable objects hurtling towards an immovable end.

Fire, flames, destruction.

She finds him in the throng of masses, as she always will, because she is a compass and he is true north, always in the spot she needs him to be for her. 

Blood. Sweat. Not tears, not yet, but they threaten to fall like the rain, the storm of the evening sun. He looks haggard, worn with life and living.

She reaches out a hand.

“Come, _mon bonheur.”_

He takes it.

“I will, _mon coeur.”_

They end where they started, back at the handshake that threw them into the sea and never let them leave. 

  
_Fin._

**Author's Note:**

> Oh?? You wanted...fluff?? Sorry I’m just here for the artistic angst.
> 
> I wrote this all in a day in a sudden bout of inspiration...I’m so sorry. I felt it got kinda weird in some places but I hope you all enjoy this anyways <3
> 
> Much love as always to all you lovely people. Kudos/comments are honey and toast <3
> 
> -thumbipeach


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